The Chinese internet giant Alibaba on Friday put the estimated share price for its imminent stock market debut at a level that values the company at between $147bn and $162bn, setting the stage for the biggest stock market flotation ever.

The company could raise as much as $24.3bn in its long-awaited initial public offering (IPO), according to analyst PrivCo. It has initially valued its shares at between $60 and $66 but it is common in IPOs for the initial figure to rise sharply before the actual sale if there is strong demand.

The details, from an amended prospectus, would make Alibaba almost as valuable as Amazon and set the company on a course to top the last record technology share sale, Facebook’s 2012 IPO, and Visa’s $19.7bn IPO in March 2008.

The e-commerce company will begin a roadshow in New York next week to meet investors expected ahead of a sale later this month. It plans to list under the symbol “BABA” on the New York Stock Exchange.

The massive share sale will create a new set of tech billionaires.

The company, which is based in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, was founded in 1999 by current executive chairman Jack Ma, a former university lecturer in English and international trade. At $66 a share Ma would make $840m before taxes by selling 12.75m shares. His remaining holding in Alibaba of about 193m shares would be worth $12.76bn.

Joseph Tsai, vice-chairman, stands to make $280m before taxes by selling 4.25m shares. He would retain a 3.2% stake worth more than $5.2bn at $66 per share.

The sale will also be a huge payday for Yahoo, one of Alibaba’s largest shareholders. Yahoo is planning to cut its stake in the company from 22.4% to 16.3%.

The share sale has attracted enormous attention on Wall Street because of the company’s preeminent position in the fast growing Chinese market.

Retail ecommerce sales in China totaled $132.61nn in 2013, according to eMarketer, and that figure is expected to increase another 63.9% in 2014 to reach $217.39bn. By 2017, eMarketer estimates, China will surpass the US as the largest retail ecommerce market in the world.

Alibaba operates the Taobao and Tmall online marketplaces, which have hundreds of millions of users in China. Transactions at the two marketplaces topped $248bn last year, greater than comparable figures for Amazon and eBay combined.

Last week Alibaba announced its overall revenue was $2.5b in the quarter ending 30 June, 46% higher than in the same period a year earlier. The company generated about $395m in mobile revenue in the latest quarter, up tenfold from a year earlier.

However there have been complaints about the complexity of the company’s accounting. Alibaba chose to debut on the NYSE after it could not get the Hong Kong exchange to agree a rule change that would allow the company to nominate the majority of its own board even after the share sale.